I know I have not been writing much of late on this blog. So what have I been doing with myself?

Mostly, I have been preparing for my upcoming surgery. The surgery has consumed a lot of my time and mental thought recently. As a result, I have been doing a lot of blogging on my other website where I discuss my pre-surgery progress and my thought, fears, and hopes for the upcoming big day.

Writing updates:

My short story did not win the Glimmertrain Family Matters contest. Oh well.

I have started writing another short story, although I am not quite certain what it is about yet, so it is kind of hard to finish. I had a really great idea for one scene and one other event. I wrote the scene and the event, now I have to figure out what to do with it.

The idea for the scene has been in my head for a while, but I did not quite know what to do with it. I did not write it down because I didn’t have a story to go with it. Now I have written the scene and I have one character at least. If I cannot think of anything to do with it, I may just set it aside and wait for my writer’s group to have a Flaming Fragments session.

WTF is a Flaming Fragment, you ask?

Well, one of the original members of the writer’s group had this great idea for a workshop. She called it, Fanning Fragments into Flame. During the workshop, you share bits of a story, an idea for a story, a character that’s been stuck in our heads looking for a story, a scene with nowhere to go, whatever with the rest of the group and see if they can give you an idea or direction. Sometimes it works.

Well, you cannot expect to put the words “flame” and “fragment” into a title and expect it to stay intact. Plus, the originator of the session moved back to Canada. Top that with no one could remember the very long, artistic title of the workshop, so it very quickly became “Flaming Fragments.”

So, I might just set the idea loose during one of those sessions and see if anyone has any good ideas.

The third thing I’ve done is work a little on my youth novel. I am almost done with it. I had some huge gaps in the plot and with the last few scenes and I was pretty stressed out about that. I had a great idea on how to fix it. I had an epiphany after my sister and her family subjected me to 14 hours of Doctor Who this weekend during the DC power outage. Either that, or I just went a little crazy. Perhaps a bit of both.

I have updated the outline and started adding to the plot in my current location. I still have to go back and insert the idea in several other places. Mostly, the idea will help me finish the story and bring the kids back home in a semi-believable yet fantastical way. My original idea was a bit too boring. If I can pull this idea off, it can be a connecting thread throughout the entire book.

I would like to get the book finished before my surgery. The surgery will be some time in August. After the surgery then, I can read through it and see what I need to fix. Then the re-write process will begin.

Even though this is a kid’s novel, it has been harder to write than I thought it would be. It’s been good though. I really had to think through a large scale plot. I wrote a poem the kids have to figure out. And I wrote a song. The poem is short, just a few lines, and it is more of a riddle than a poem. The song is longer and actually kind of bad, right now. I don’t imagine that it will ever be a top ten hit or even set to music, but I’d like it to be not bad. I am going to have to have someone who writes poetry look at it to see what I can improve. A poet, I am not.

I think the story is fun and I hope that I can do something with it once I’m through writing/editing, etc. We shall see.